Where to sell crafts online: Marketplace versus your own online store

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Are you a crafter who wants to turn your crafting hobby into a business you can run from home?

There are growing numbers people who find making and selling crafts a great way to earn money whilst staying at home to look after their children.

If you’d like to join them, I’ve put together a list of ways you can sell your crafts online.

Great places to sell crafts online

Online marketplaces

It is a brilliant place for crafters and makers to sell their homemade wares because it is adored by people who LOVE homemade craft, but either don’t have the time or the talent to make beautifully handcrafted products themselves.

Etsy has been around as an online marketplace since 2005.

It’s good a super strong brand identity as a great place to sell and buy handmade wares, vintage finds and craft supplies.

It’s also global, so the potential audience is massive – 33 million buyers and growing!

Of course this brings with it challenges.

There is a LOT of competition to get your product found and bought on Etsy.

So it’s worth doing your research and putting together an Etsy selling and marketing strategy.

There are even companies set up to help you sell on Etsy.

Like Marmalead that will help you create a successful keyword strategy to ensure you and your products get found on Etsy.

Selling on Etsy is a safe and easy way to sell online

Etsy has a simple, transparent and secure system for its sellers.

There’s no monthly fees

All transactions are secure through the Etsy site and there is seller protection in place

The platform is growing from strength-to-strength and is now a series rival to Etsy.

Amazon Handmade is invite only, to ensure that only artisans can sell on it. (There has been stuff said about companies outsourcing their production to sell on Etsy, which isn’t really very true to the ‘handmade’ ethos.

You will need to establish that you are eligible to sell on Amazon Handmade:

“Your products must be “made entirely by hand, hand-altered, or hand assembled (not from a kit)” and “handmade by you (the artisan), by one of your employees (if your company has 20 or fewer employees), or a member of your collective with less than 100 people,”

Plus…

“Your product must fall into one of the following categories… jewellery, home products, beauty and personal care, pet supplies, party supplies, stationery, accessories, baby, sporting goods or toys and games.”

Once your application is approved you get invited to create your Artisan Profile, where you can share your story with Amazon Handmade buyers, and start listing your products.

Your products will be listed on the main Amazon site under the Handmade department.

That means there’s the potential to reach millions and millions of customers.

You’ll have the opportunity to list under Amazon Prime and you can choose from various promotional and shipping options.

Amazon Handmade fees

There continues to be a waiving of any account fees.

As with Amazon there are different sales territories. So if you’re UK based, you can choose to sell to the UK and Europe.

Set up Your Own Shop to Sell Crafts Online

If you don’t fancy Etsy or Amazon Handmade and in fact don’t really want to be part of an online marketplace, you can simply set up your own online store.

You will be even more reliant on marketing and promoting your online store via social media, SEO and Pinterest marketing than you would be if you go down the marketplace route.

On the flipside, you get to do things your way and the seller fees are potentially less.

eCommerce can be a daunting place

Diving into eCommerce as a retailer can be a daunting task.

But there are a few really straight forward ways to do it.

These are the online selling platforms.

Shopify

There are over 600,000 Shopify stores online.

It is now the leading eCommerce platform.

Shopify is a safe and trustworthy sales platform that is SEO optimised, allows social media integration, has a full fraud prevention system and incorporates a full blogging platform for content marketing.

The platform provides literally everything you need to get your online store up and running in a super professional way.

There are store templates and business tools to track sales and traffic.

Plus customer support to help you whenever you get stuck or need advice.

Shopify offers 14 days for free, which gives you enough time to set up a store, have a look at how it all works and establish if it’s the eCommerce platform for you.

Here’s a look at the Shopify fees:

You don’t have to opt for creating a Shopify store, there are other Shopify solutions as well.

You can create a Shopify button to sit on your blog or website or you can create a Facebook Shop.